(Egg) Laying the foundation

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(Energy: 17-5=12)

"Pecha Forest again..."

Cirrus didn't expect to have too much troubles with the dungeon this time. She had been able to purchase a TM for the move Double Team and gotten some practice in on the new technique. Clearing Pecha Forest wasn't her plan for today though. What she intended to do was gather herbs.

On her last visit, she had met up with a Shiny Houndour and learned about some of their effects. Borage, Cirrus recalled, could bring down a Pokémon's fever. She had since done her homework and was now returning to collect more varieties. To expand her knowledge...

"Well, in I go~" the Togepi said while walking in to the forest, her eyes open for anything.

(No worries.  I've been pretty busy this week, so I wouldn't have been able to post much anyway.)

Darcy spotted the Tangela.  She was finally starting to gain some ground–it seemed like her four legs were faster than the Tangela's two, even given its size advantage.  She put on as much speed as she possibly could, hoping to close the rest of the distance.

As she got closer, she thought she heard the Togepi mumble something.  Something about flying..?  "Wait, fly?  Cirrus, did that thing do something to your hea-"

While she was distracted by the Togepi's words, she tripped over something blue and shiny and toppled heavily to the ground. Damn it! Why did she always lose focus so easily?  She blinked tears of pain and frustration out of her eyes and forced herself back to her feet.

The Tangela had stopped running and had turned to face her.  It stared at her disinterestedly, like it was simply annoyed.  Darcy's first instinct was to just tackle it again, but she hesitated.  Her last tackle hadn't done much, and if she got too close, the the thing would just grab her again and she wouldn't be strong enough to break free...  Her head throbbed and she shuddered at the thought of being hurled at another tree.

But this was her job!  She had to do something!  "C-Cirrus!  Just hold still!  I'll get you free!"

Trying to hide her desperation, she let out a high-pitched Growl and raised her hackles, hoping to make her fluffy pink body look as intimidating as possible.  She sunk her claws into the dirt and frantically wracked her mind for anything else she could do...

(Energy: 10-1+1=10)

(Energy: 4+1=5)

Oh... Darcy heard that mumble about flying. Cirrus felt a little embarrassed, but that was immediately substituted out for concern when she saw the Skitty trip up. She begun to struggle against the Tangela's hold upon witnessing that, worried that she would lose them by the time she got up...

With that, she was surprised and yet very pleased that the Tangela had turned around to confront Darcy instead. Cirrus watched her get up and just had to admire that raw grit her teammate was showing. She decided to trust in her and await the plan. Not that Darcy had to frantically come up with one through, became Cirrus had just noticed what the cat tripped over before. A blue orb...

Both Cirrus and her captor knew what that orb was. A Petrify Orb. The Tangela noticed it too, knowing what this could mean, the Pokémon immediately extended two vines out and lashed them towards Darcy in a Vine Whip attack before Cirrus could point out the orb.

Darcy jumped aside as the first vine drew close.  It swung right past her head and slammed heavily into the ground, sending a shower of dirt and twigs into the air.  She tried to hop over the second vine as it swung in from the side, but it still clipped her legs and knocked her to the ground for what felt like the hundredth time today.

Darcy staggered to her feet yet again, shakier than ever.  The Tangela didn't pull back its vines, so she backed away and braced herself for another Vine Whip, but...  It didn't come.  Instead of lashing out at Darcy, the vines rushed right past her and into the undergrowth.  Confused, Darcy turned around to see where they were going.

Just when she thought things couldn't get any worse, she saw that the Tangela was reaching for an orb lying one or two meters away from her.  Her heart sank.  She didn't recognize the markings on this one, but she knew that she and Cirrus would probably be in deep trouble if the Tangela managed to activate it.

Darcy did the only thing she could think to do.  She pounced on the vines and bit down hard.  The tips of the Tangela's vines grabbed the orb unimpeded, but with Darcy's mouth pinning the rest of them together, they couldn't get quite a good enough grip to crush and activate it.

With a lurch, the Tangela tried pulling its vines back.  Darcy grunted as she struggled to hold her ground, but try as she might, the Tangela was bigger and stronger than her.  Her paws dug into the earth as she was slowly dragged closer and closer to the grass Pokemon.  At this rate, she would end up entangled just like Cirrus, and the feral would activate the orb, and who knew what would happen next.

She couldn't believe herself.  This was all happening because she had failed to protect her friend again and again and again.  If only she hadn't left Cirrus alone, or if she could actually fight, or if she had noticed the orb earlier...  She had been given every opportunity to do something, but had flubbed every single one, and now this nice little Togepi was going to suffer because of it.  Darcy's eyes welled up with tears as she was pulled forward.  She wished she could at least say that she was sorry.

It would be no exaggeration to say that things were presently going from bad to worse, the Togepi thought to herself. That orb would cause the user's foes to become petrified. Completely immobile and unmoving, as though they were simply very realistic stone statues of a Togepi and Skitty, for an extensive period of time. The thought made her feel cold inside...

Further unwanted feelings then swirled around in Cirrus's head as she noticed the tears welling up in Darcy's eyes. Poor thing... Cirrus had a gut feeling that she'd have begun blaming herself for everything wrong that had occurred since leaving to collect that apple. Sure enough, the teammate was eventually entangled and bound tightly in a similar fashion as Cirrus; only the Togepi's solid shell keeping out her own major feelings of constriction. The orb had been dropped due to a lack of grip and rolled further into the bushes however, granting the duo a brief respite as the Tangela begun searching for it.

"Oh, Darcy... I don't blame you for all of this..." Cirrus had to say first. She found it integral to at least mend her friend's sense of self worth while she formulated a plan for when the orb returned to their field of vision. "You've got your heart in the right place, that's what matters to me."

Darcy mewed with pain and let go of the vines in her mouth as other ones wrapped around her.  She halfheartedly struggled against them as she was lifted off of the ground, but was too exhausted to seriously fight anymore.  The vines made it difficult to even breathe, let alone break free.  At least her fluffy tail hadn't been tangled up yet.  It still hurt from being yanked on earlier today.

While the Tangela trundled down a small slope in pursuit of the orb, Cirrus spoke up.  Darcy listened, expecting the Togepi to be scared or angry, and what she heard instead made her heart melt.  "C-Cirrus..." she began.  She blinked the tears out of her eyes, but more just took their place.  Even after all of those mistakes, Cirrus was being so nice to her...  She wished more than ever that she could have helped the little Pokemon.  This all still felt like her fault, but at least Cirrus was taking it well, and the two of them could remain friends after this...

The Tangela tightened its grip and Darcy was snapped out of her thoughts.  "No amount of heart is going to get us out of this, though..." Darcy said, trying to get her tears under control while she avoided eye contact.  "I'm...  Really sorry..."

Darcy trailed off, and her mind wandered as she wondered what would happen next.  They would have a chance to be friends after this, right?   The Tangela wouldn't eat them or anything, would it?  Grass types normally weren't carnivores, so she figured that it would probably just activate the orb and then rob the two of them blind, or something like that.  ...So much for getting her friend a gift.  She would probably leave this forest poorer than she came in...

Over the sound of the Tangela's rustling vines, Darcy heard rushing water.  The group rounded a corner, and up ahead was steep ravine.  The orb had come to rest precariously on its edge.  The Tangela bounded towards it, and Darcy shut her eyes as she wondered what this one might possibly do.

Seeing Darcy trying to avoid eye contact, Cirrus instead chose to hold on to one of the Skitty's front paws in an attempt to comfort her. The Togepi truly was quite down on herself too but she kept a supportive mask on, bottling up her own feelings for Darcy's sake.

As soon as they arrived at the ravine, Cirrus's heart plummeted faster than a Golem in water. It was too steep for her plan of violently lurching forwards in order to fly loose from the Tangela's grip and reach the orb first to even work without the risk of her overshooting and falling down the ravine. She had nothing left, so her attention immediately went to Darcy...

"...It's ok. If that's how you want to see things, then I forgive you." She held on to the Skitty's paw very tightly, her only plan right now being to ensure that they wouldn't get separated after that orb was used. Cirrus felt that such a thing would be the worst situation for Darcy.

The Togepi closed her eyes, heard the orb being collected by a Vine Whip, listened to it being activated, then every inch of their bodies became stiff and unmoving as the sensation of an electric shock punctured their bodies and permeated their nerves...

~~~~~~~~~~

The Tangela took a relieved breath as the duo froze, as though they had been turned to stone. "Good... That was close..." They had put up a far greater struggle than he'd expected...

The egg Pokémon was needed. He had seen her from the bushes back near the main path, her knowledge of herbs that could heal... Yes, she was needed. His friend needed it. Her companion, a small feline Pokémon, wasn't. He was finding their immobile forms too hard to separate from each other though... That settled it, they were both coming.

He went back the way they came, taking care to not drop them. Any sort of hard impact, move or otherwise, would undo his efforts. No... he couldn't allow that. After a right turn some point into the backtracking, the Tangela arrived at his home, situated within a tree trunk. He carefully set the pair of explorers down upon the floor before giving both of them a firm lash with a Vine Whip each...

~~~~~~~~~~

"...Ahhh!?" Cirrus yelped with a start, now finally able to move normally and open her eyes to look over the new surroundings. She had absolutely no idea what the Tangela might have in store for them...

When Cirrus took her paw, Darcy wordlessly squeezed the Togepi's hand in return.  She held on even tighter as Cirrus forgave her.  She had really needed to hear that.  Her heart raced as she heard the Tangela pick up the orb, and she prepared herself for the worst.  A sudden jolt shot from her head to her tail, her body went fuzzy, and then she couldn't feel anything at all...

When she finally came to, she felt miserable.  She was sore all over, her head hurt, and all of her muscles felt numb from being locked in place for so long.  "Ow, ow, ow..." Darcy groaned as she rubbed what felt like a fresh bruise on her forehead.  She blinked her eyes open, and her mind swirled with questions.  How long had she been out for?  Was Cirrus okay?  Why was she indoors?  She groggily looked around the room, and then flinched as she noticed the Tangela blocking the exit.

"Y-You're still here?" she said as she scrambled backwards and bumped into the cold wall of the tree trunk.  Why had it brought them here instead of just stealing their things?  It hadn't even touched her bag!  It wasn't really going to eat them, was it?  "W-what do you want?  Why won't you leave us alone?"

"Y-you're a persistent one..." Cirrus said to the Tangela, taking a moment to compose her senses before standing between him and Darcy. "What's going on? Why are we here?"

The Tangela stared at the two. Judging by the miserable looking Skitty, it was clear to him that he may have gone a little too far by abducting both of them. He decided to fess up.

"Ok, I'll tell... I need help... My friend ran across a Beedrill nest not long ago and was attacked. He got stung by their venomous stingers, I've tried to help him but nothing's worked... I don't know what to do..." the Tangela admitted. "Then I heard you-" he gestured to the Togepi "-talking about healing herbs back there. You sounded like you knew your stuff, I thought that you could be able to help..."

Taking a pause for a moment, he continued. "I really didn't want to take that friend of yours through this trouble though, I'm sorry... They can leave if they want." He addressed Darcy after this, looking down. "I sorta panicked when you started to fight and chase me. Using that orb was the only way I could think to resolve this. I know I took this to an extreme, but I really need help..." He looked a little distraught, scared that he'd ruined things with his excessive actions...

Darcy calmed down a little and flattened her ears.  She wasn't sure how she felt about all of this, but at least the two of them didn't seem to be in danger.  The Skitty sighed and walked forward to stand beside Cirrus.  "No, no.  When I saw you grabbing my friend, I got scared.  I thought you were a feral,"  she explained as she stared at the ground and flicked her tail uncomfortably.  "Um...  Sorry for tackling you like that.  I really didn't know."

She looked back up at the Tangela and started lashing her tail more energetically.  "But if you needed help, you should have just asked for it!  Cirrus would have been glad to help you, right?"  Darcy glanced at the Togepi before returning her gaze to the grass-type.  She had felt really terrified for her friend back there!  And that was to say nothing of her injuries!  She almost started crying again just out of frustration from it all.

She listened closely to the Tangela's reply, concern for themselves being quickly substituted out for her usual kindhearted demeanor. It was almost as though he had never sent a Sleep Powder into her face at all. That didn't matter to Cirrus now, what really mattered was that this Pokémon needed help badly. She responded to Darcy with the most assured "Of course. I'd have been glad to help, and I still am." that she could muster, but felt that something else had to be made clear...

"Being helpless-" the Togepi said to both Darcy and the Tangela "-is something I'm familiar with... I was exploring this forest not long ago and met a medic whom I begun to admire quickly, but she was soon injured when a Pineco next to her exploded. She was warning me to get back and left no time for herself to escape. Until some Pokémon arrived, I... didn't know how to help her..." Being unable to help someone who needed help was this Togepi's newest fear, so she found herself greatly sympathising with the needy Tangela.

Cirrus subsequently wracked her memory, trying to recall the effects of some herbs before one idea managed to surface. "I think we might have a solution to this. Darcy, can you keep helping out?"

"Cirrus..." Darcy murmered as the Togepi finished telling her story.  Seeing a friend hurt like that and being unable to help sounded awful...  It echoed her own feelings of being inadequate as a guild member and unable to protect Cirrus earlier.  She guessed that the Tangela had been going through the same thing, and that was why the egg Pokemon was so quick to forgive him.  He probably felt exactly like she had, come to think of it, having just been desperate to help his friend...  Darcy couldn't really stay upset after realizing that.  They had gotten off on the wrong foot, to put it lightly, but helping his friend was much more important than that right now.  And, well...  It had been partially her fault for attacking him.  She wanted to make up for that if she could.

"Of course!" Darcy said as she hopped to her feet and shook off the twigs and leaves stuck in her fur from her earlier scuffle.  Her usual smile returned to her face as she began pacing towards the door. "What's your plan?  I'll do whatever I can to help."

"The plan? Dandelions." Cirrus said as they headed out. "I've seen for myself how chewing on a dandelion leaf can bring relief to a Pokémon in pain, but I think I can recall one other effect a dandelion has that would be perfect for this situation." She had never seen a Beedrill before but could remember seeing a few of their victims being treated.

"Something to do with the stems, if I remember that book well enough. I'm gonna need some backup and an extra pair of paws if we truly do come across some ferals this time around." She wasn't really discouraged by the events that led them to this area and was still totally up for having Darcy's help.

Gengarzilla carried out 5 launched of one Pecha Forest :

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"Oh, dandelions!"  Darcy said, her ears perking up.  "I know about those!  My sister and I picked some for my mom when she broke her leg."

Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the bright sunlight as she stepped outside.  She took a moment to stretch out her sore muscles and enjoy the sunshine, then set off along a likely-looking path.  "I had no idea that they were good for poison, though," she said absently as she walked.  "I just knew that they helped dull pain, and that chasing their seeds around is really fun."

Though her relaxed demeanor had returned, Darcy was careful to stay close to Cirrus this time.  She didn't want a repeat of their incident with the Tangela.  Her ears twitched at every little sound from within forest and she kept a close eye out for any movement.

Eventine carried out 3 launched of one Pecha Forest :

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(Energy: 5-21=0)

She listened to Darcy's tale about her mom, beginning to quickly feel a sort of kinship with this Skitty. Cirrus could tell that they would have a lot of similar things to talk about with each other. "Aww, that's really sweet of you two~" she replied.

"I think they're only really good for bee stings though. To draw out the poison. For poisonous powders, spores, and other methods, a Pecha Berry would work fine." the Togepi continued onwards before she caught sight of a seed laying on the forest ground. "Mm, this might come in handy soon."

As she put the Swift Seed in her bag, the sound of a bird Pokémon's wingbeat broke through the silence of the forest's canopy as a Murkrow emerged from a tree, the crow immediately flying towards Cirrus for a Peck attack that the Togepi braced herself for and absorbed with her shell. "Heads up, we got company here!"

(Energy: 10-10=0)

"That's really interesting!" Darcy said to Cirrus, once again thoroughly surprised that such a common plant could be such a life-saver.  "You know, I forgot most of my mom's lessons about plants because she never let us go far from home to pick them, but they would sure be useful now that I'm at the guild.  You should teach me more sometime!"

They were interrupted by the Murkrow swooping down from the treetops.  "I see it!" Darcy called as she dug her claws into the ground and stared at the bird intensely, determined not to make any dumb mistakes this time.  She hadn't failed her unofficial guild mission just yet!  She charged headlong at the Murkrow as Cirrus blocked its first peck, only to twirl around at the last moment and slap the bird with her tail before darting backwards.  She hoped that her Fake-Out attack would startle the crow and draw its attention away from her friend.  Returning to a neutral stance, she watched the crow Pokemon carefully.  She didn't quite know what Murkrow or Togepi were capable of, so it seemed best to stay on guard for now.

Ironically, being so focused on the bird kept her from noticing the two clusters of egg-like Pokemon rustling through the bushes behind her, drawn here by all of the noise.